Actor and director team Al Pacino and Brian De Palma of “Scarface” and “Carlito’s Way” will be teaming up again for the upcoming film depicting Joe Paterno’s life.
Melissa Glassman, creative executive at Pressman Film, confirmed that the duo will be working on the film tentatively titled “Happy Valley.”
According to BBC News, producer Edward R. Pressman acquired the movie rights from Joe Posnanski, author of the best-selling biography “Paterno.”
Student Leanna Lavalle said she thinks the outcome of the film will depend on how Paterno is portrayed and what aspects of his life the movie focuses on.
“I don’t think it will be beneficial to portray just the downfall,” Lavalle (junior-finance) said.
Mabel Tavarez said one of the things she is interested in seeing is how the film comes to a conclusion.
“I wonder how they are going to wrap things up with all of the tragedy that occurred at the end of his life,” Travarez (sophomore-criminology) said.
Emily Kulakowski said she thinks the film is being released too soon after the death of Paterno.
While the plot of the movie is not yet known, Posnanski's book follows Paterno's final years.
The book features Paterno as the winningest coach in college football but also his career end in 2011, after news of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case broke.
“I don’t think that there is any good timetable to make a movie like this,” Andy Glass said.
Glass (senior-security, risk analysis) said he hopes the film portrays Happy Valley in a better light than it has been in the recent past.
Pacino, age 72, is famous for his role of mobster Tony Montana in “Scarface,” and will play the late Paterno, who died at age 85. The two men both come from Italian backgrounds.
Ally Brennan (freshman-marketing) said she thinks Pacino and De Palma will do a good job in showing the positive aspects of the former football coach’s life.
“He’s an amazing actor,” Punit Das said of Pacino. “I think he’s the best person to play JoePa’s role.”
Das (senior-architectural engineering) said he thinks having Pacino play the late football coach is a “proud thing for PSU.”
Tavarez said she looks forward to seeing how Pacino’s role and the “Happy Valley” film turns out, and thinks that it could easily go either way.
“Nobody can replace JoePa, but it will be interesting to see what happens,” Erin Andrews (junior-toxicology) said.
No release or start dates for the film have been disclosed.
